This Week in Launch: ULA and Rocket Lab back for more launches

This week we have a total of four launches on the schedule as of right now. Two of the missions are coming from SpaceX with the remaining two coming from Rocket Lab and ULA. The highlight for the week will be the Atlas V launch, as it will be ULA’s final Atlas launch for national security missions.

This week’s launches:

• July 30 (Tuesday)
  • ULA | Atlas V | USSF-51 | 6:45 A.M. ET
    • SLC-41, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
  • Rocket Lab | Electron | Owl For One, One For Owl | 12:15 P.M. ET
    • LC-1B, Māhia Peninsula, New Zealand
• August 2 (Friday)
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 10-6 | 12:19 A.M. ET
    • LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
• August 3 (Saturday)
  • SpaceX | Falcon 9 | CRS NG-21 | 11:28 A.M. ET
    • SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida

ULA prepares for final national security Atlas

ULA is preparing to launch its next Atlas V rocket this coming Tuesday. Configured in the 551 variant, the largest and post powerful version of the Atlas V, it will launch a classified payload for the Space Force to a yet to be known orbit.

As per usual, the Space Force and ULA aren’t sharing details as to what is inside the Atlas’ payload fairing. While missions for the larger Delta IV Heavy were pretty well understood, the Atlas V payloads could be from any one of the governments space asset programs.

This mission, USSF-51, will be ULA’s 100th national security mission and the final one for the company’s Atlas rocket. With the introduction of Vulcan in January with its successful Cert-1 mission and Cert-2 right around the corner, new national security missions for ULA will move to that platform.

There are still 15 Atlas V rockets left and have been split mostly between Boeing’s Starliner and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, with one ViaSat mission scheduled for 2025.